Note: Javascript is disabled or is not supported by your browser. For this reason, some items on this page will be unavailable. For more information about this message, please visit this page:
About CDC.gov

During 1994–1997, approximately 70% and 60% of the cases of conditions reported to the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System included persons of known race and ethnicity, respectively. A major goal of the Healthy People 2020 initiative is to eliminate health disparities.

Objective

To describe trends in the completeness of race and ethnicity in case reports of the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System during 2006–2010.

Methods

The National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System is a public health surveillance system that aggregates case reports of infectious diseases and conditions that are designated nationally notifiable and are collected by US states and territories. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta, Georgia) maintains this surveillance system in collaboration with the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists. We used Cochran-Armitage Trend Test (SAS, version 9.2) to test the hypothesis that the percentage of case reports with the completeness of race and ethnicity data increased or decreased linearly during 2006–2010.

Main Outcome Measure

Completeness of race and ethnicity variables.

Results

The 32 conditions reviewed included 1 030 804 case records. Seventy percent of records included a known value for race, and 49% of records included ethnicity during 2006–2010. During 2006–2010, race was known in 70% or more of records in 24 of 32 conditions and in 23 of 51 jurisdictions. During 2006–2010, the systemwide reporting of race remained at the same level of completeness (70%) but the reporting of ethnicity increased slightly from 48% in 2006 to 53% in 2010. In comparison with race, the proportions of records coded to ethnicity were less among all conditions.

Conclusions

Significant change has occurred in the completeness of reporting of ethnicity but not race during 2006–2010. However, the reporting of ethnicity still lags substantially behind the reporting of race. Jurisdictions that identify conditions with lower rates of completeness of race and ethnicity can assess the net benefits of efforts to improve the completeness of race and ethnicity data.

The Summary of Notifiable Diseases United States, 2010 contains the official statistics, in tabular and graphic form, for the reported occurrence of nationally notifiable infectious diseases in the United States for 2010. Unless otherwise noted, the ...

The Summary of Notifiable Diseases — United States, 2012 contains the official statistics, in tabular and graphic form, for the reported occurrence of nationally notifiable infectious diseases in the United States for 2012. Unless otherwise noted, ...

"The Summary of Notifiable Diseases --- United States, 2003 contains the official statistics, in tabular and graphic form, for the reported occurrence of nationally notifiable diseases in the United States for 2003. Unless otherwise noted, the data a...

"The Summary of Notifiable Diseases--United States, 2004 contains the official statistics, in tabular and graphic form, for the reported occurrence of nationally notifiable infectious diseases in the United States for 2004. Unless otherwise noted, th...

Published October 14, 2016, for 2014 : The Summary of Notifiable Infectious Diseases and Conditions—United States, 2014 (hereafter referred to as the summary) contains the official statistics, in tabular and graphic form, for the reported occurrenc...